Last week

Sorry that it's been so long since I last updated everyone!!!
Hopefully these pictures will bring you up to speed and explain what we've been doing for the past week!

We've turned our back deck into a work zone. All the trash from the kitchen has ended up on the back deck (and slowly makes its way to the garage). We also have been cutting dry wall, etc out there!

I have tiny purple flowers all over my backyard! It looks so pretty!

My Dad taught Rob how to use the circular saw so Rob has been cutting dry wall. My Dad uses a circular saw because it gives really nice clean cuts!

I love this video of Rob! Beware - it's pretty loud!

We have some crazy levels in the house. The kitchen floor is lower than the hallway floor.... the hallway floor is about 4-6 inches higher than any other floor in the house and we couldn't tell why. So last Tuesday night we decided to pull up the unsightly flower painted wood floors to see what was underneath. Here's what we found!    YUCK!!!

Bob helped pull a lot of the old wooden floor up using a crow bar....

The floor underneath was so ugly!!! I felt like I was outside!

Unfortunately, just pulling up that old wood didn't bring us back to level with the kitchen... so we had to keep pulling up old floors. That's right... floorS.... there were five levels in total: the wood floor, the stone patio, a sixties tile floor and then some plywood.

Here's a close up of the sixties floor! It was extremely slippery which is probably why they put the patio looking floor on top of it! My Dad literally slipped walking back in the front door!

 Finally back to the original floor boards! Now we had to go through the same process in the kitchen!

We went to Lumber Liquidators and bought some new hard wood floor for our hallway! It matches our staircase really well! I love it and can't wait until its installed. It all clips together so we'll be doing it ourselves! Here's a pic of the floor we chose!

I pulled the little tiles up in the bathroom because the levels were all crazy coming in and out of there too. There is a thin sheet of plywood down everywhere in the house. It;s really hard to pull up - it just splinters. It's been a real pain to get out. And there's still more to come!

We bought some new tiles on sale at Home Depot for this bathroom! I think it's going to look great when it's done!

Mean while in the kitchen:

My Dad started to dry wall over the walls that he had fixed and wired...

He cut out the old extractor fan using his angle grinder one night and has patched up the hole already! I'm so glad that thing is gone! It creeped me out for some reason!

More of Dad's dry-walling in the kitchen around our new opening! I love this part of the kitchen! 

Dad started moving the laundry room door... Unfortunately we found that a vent went up from the furnace to the bathroom upstairs (kids) so we have to re-route that! You can see it in the left of this picture...

Here's the wall now after Dad has dry walled it and moved the door. We still have to re-route the vent... Also note that the kitchen floor is still in there too! 

My Saturday Demolition Team! They worked so hard and they matched! They pulled the whole kitchen floor out, right down to the black vapor barrier right above the floor boards! It took a lot of work! My Dad kept saying that Rob had the red mist because he worked fast and furiously!

Here's a short video of them pulling up the easier part of the floor. 

Unfortunately the thin ply wood underneath just splintered away again!!! There were also a ton of nails and staples left over in the hallway and kitchen. I pulled the last of them out today.... my back hurts so badly but I'm glad its done!

We knew that there was some old termite damage in the house against the outside wall in the kitchen. The damage was not as bad as I expected at all. Just one section of 2 x 4's. Rob note the following note to the termites 'GO AWAY TERMITES. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME!'

 The previous owner had paid someone to come in and replace all the old eaten wood in the house which the guy did. We could see it.... The only problem was the guy got lazy towards the end and stopped notching the boards as he replaced the wood. That meant that the one end of our kitchen started to rise up... basically our floor was all wavy!! So we had to pull up the floor boards (they were tongue and groove believe it or not). Rob and my Dad leveled everything out and my Dad planed everything back to level. We have to level the kitchen were the fridge was previously too. Turns out the guy had a leak that he either didn't kow about or didn't do anything about. The floor boards rotted and sagged.... PHEW!!! such surprises!!

Rob and Dad cut a new hole in the hallway so that we can have access to the crawl space.

We bought some brand new floor boards on Sunday after church. They'll go down on top of our fresh and level floors. Then we'll put our actual floors down! Rob's Dad drove us to Home Depot in Pop Pops van and then helped Rob carry it into the house! What would we do without family?

 Today after I pulled out all the staples and nails in the kitchen and hallway I decided to tackle the ivy.... I didn't get very far... but the little bit that I pulled away revealed a tree stump and another rock.... This could be a long process!

Rob and I got a quote from Home Depot for our carpet and want to have that installed before we move into our house at the end of the month! We have so much to do before then! SOme things on our list for this week and the weekend are: pulling the carpet up throughout the house. There is some of that same flooring in the den with the fireplace that we'll need to cut up and take out (just when I thought that part was over). Dad is going to lay the new floor boards and then teach Rob and I how to dry-wall the hallway. We're hoping to paint the downstairs hall and hopefully lay our new hardwood down. Dad also needs to move that vent in the kitchen and get the plumbing ready for our new appliances! Our kitchen cabinets are set to arrive on the 27th and our appliances we'll be here on the 30th!!

Thanks for checking in again! Hopefully I'll do better with posting updates this week!

Love The Colby's!